Need help putting some PCs in their place.

[Brudark]

So I have two PCs (an alchemist and an oracle) that are the touch attackers of the group that constantly screw up the BBEGs I throw at them. The alch. has his bombs that catch the bad guy on fire and the oracle has spells like doom & burning disarm that constantly thwart my attempts at besting them. What could I do to get back at these pesky PCs? Any advice?

[master_marshmallow]

Red dragon, immune to fire, doesn't hold weapons.

[Ansel Krulwich]

Drop rocks on them.

[Loup Blanc]

Touch attacks and save or suck? Time for a badass monk BBEG.

[Marthkus]

Oh no my PCs are doing things! Better stop that. You're the GM. You can crush the PCs whenever and however you want. If the game is you vs them they have already lost.

[Joesi]

Depends somewhat on the level. If alchemist has something like acid bombs (or especially something like sonic bomb, which is probably more common) there's not many specific creatures you can choose from to counter bombs.

The simplest one is one which knows about the party (rumors, spies, witness, divination, etc.), and hence can appropriately prepare and react, such as by casting resist energy (fire).

Overall though, the way games are supposed to work with characters that have multiple uses of something per day is to make them encounter many things in order to use up those 'charges'.

I've heard people say a good/proper [combat-oriented] adventuring day includes 4 discrete combat encounters. If they throw just 2-3 bombs per encounter, they might be close to, or have hit their limit of bombs for the day by the 3rd encounter, depending on their level. Higher levels would need to throw more bombs, and at lower levels, they have not many bombs to deal with 4 encounters.

Obviously, creatures with lots of health, high dex/dodge, and/or SR (oracle/casters), but perhaps low damage are good ways to soak up those uses to make them use them more carefully— especially monsters that regenerate or are maybe even unkillable (while the will eventually realize the thing is unkillable, they'll still lose at least 1 spell/bomb in the process, probably more)

This is how it goes for all spellcasters. wizards and sorcerers are very powerful, but they have limited amount of spells per day, so they can't keep on trucking like a fighter can.

[Ansel Krulwich]

Give them a diplomatic mission.

[Marthkus]

Ansel Krulwich wrote:

Give them a diplomatic mission.

This guy knows what to do.

[BigNorseWolf]

I would be very careful with that attitude. Its very easy for it to spill over into a dm vs players situation rather than providing tough critters that are trying to kill the pcs.

[Ansel Krulwich]

Marthkus wrote:

Ansel Krulwich wrote:

Give them a diplomatic mission.

This guy knows what to do.

Then drop rocks on them.

[Rynjin]

Yar, throw a badass Monk at them.

Even better, throw a whole MONASTERY of badass Monks at them.

Make sure the leader is a Pain Taster as well. Be certain to give me the results.

[Jester David]

A diplomatic mission to a monastery at the base of a mountain with perilous rock formations.

[Gobo Horde]

A tribe of barbarians with superstition and ghost rager. The entire tribe fears magic and activly shuns it wherever they go.
Improved evasion and a high dex. Would be good against the alchy.
Smokesticks or deeper darkness. You can't target what you can't see.
A silence spell will make for a hard encounter for the oracle.
Underwater fight? Make alchy hurt for a bit.
Curse them. -6 to the oracles int. -4 to the alchimists to hit rolls. Be mean and hit the oracle with -6 str and see him cry >:>
Send a rout of flail snails at them, watch the oracles spells fly around randomly, especially useful with the next suggestion!
Use cursed items. An insence of obsession would be a great one to use on the oracle! Especially agains a rout of flail snails!
Send grapplers after them. Send a tetori cruise missile at them.
Use some clerics with potent arura effects like the madness domain, destruction, or protean subdomain. For extra annoyance have the cleric be on the same team and caus mayhem that way.
Make a monk/paladin mini-boss that is just hard to hurt.
Send them against a dwarven colony who all have the glory of old trait and the steel soul feat.
Send in a massive wave of weak minions. I mean a massive wave. A high CR with all the little gribblies and the alchy will have a field day. Then when the alchy is used up send in the BBEG as a seperate encounter right after.
Spell resistance.

[Avh]

What is the CR of the BBEG you're facing them with ?

If it is the same CR or CR+1, it won't last long, that is for sure.

[Bacon666]

Don't put them in their place...

If you've put restrictions on character generation, make sure those restrictions are kept.

Remember that your players need to have fun too! And walking over some encounters make the few hard encounters that much more fun.

Now the few hard encounters (trust me, it can be fun to 1 round kill the BBEG, and have problems with some mooks...) Use fire resistance, high touch ac's and multiple baddies...casters and archers can get a few rounds b4 the alchy gets within reach... Many dimple solutions ... But again remember to let the chars shine...

[Big Lemon]

The problem seems relatively simple to solve. A high Dex creature with resistance or immunity to fire. Or a flying creature that hovers above the group, so when the alchemist tries to throw a bomb at it and misses...

"EVERYONE SCATTER"

[Big Lemon]

Also, I agree with the sentiments about the attitude. "Putting them in their place" is something one usually says in a healthy relationship of any kind, let alone a gaming one.

[doc the grey]

Why hasn't anyone suggested a devil? Hell a hamatula is all unarmed strikes, covered in spikes, and could easily gain a few monk levels if you feel the urge lol.

But really man devils, most have natural attacks, all are immune to fire, and you should be able to find a few that have decent touch AC's along with some DR and SR.

and if all that fails drop rocks on em ^-^.

[Ptolmaeus Arvenus]

Ansel Krulwich wrote:

Marthkus wrote:

Ansel Krulwich wrote:

Give them a diplomatic mission.

This guy knows what to do.

Then drop rocks on them.

Send them on a diplomatic mission to prevent some rocks from falling on them.

Then have the rocks fall anyway.

[Brudark]

Sorry! I guess "Putting them in their place" would come across negatively huh...
Definitely not the intent ;)

My issue is I've constantly thrown CR+3-5 villain after villain and my players keep thwarting them with no issue. Trust me, the whole point of my campaign is so my players are genuinely having a good time with as little "DM vs. Players" aspect as I can.

Red dragon - I could probably toss that somewhere in the plot
Dropping rocks on them - Aha! Bombs don't work well on rocks!
Diplomatic Mission - My group tends to get into loops and easily get bored if theres not some sort of action going on.
Villain who knows about the PCs - Very likely & good idea....they just returned from delving into an underground ruin forgotten beneath a major city that ended up completely destroying a good part of said city. People will know about them now :p
Devils - will actually play a major part in the current quest line

like I said, my intention is not to make this a VS situation but to make the boss battles actually challenging. I think my main problem is that recently the group has only been doing one fight a day at full potency with full bombs & spells. Lots of good ideas that have helped get the gears turning.

[Ansel Krulwich]

Environmental challenges will keep them on their toes. Recreate the final fight from that Star Wars movie and make them hop from rock to rock down a fast moving lava flow during battle. On someone's website recently, I read something about an entire boss encounter that takes place in a room where the entire floor is a huge see-saw. Have them fight a dragon on slippery or difficult terrain. Make them fight in a rain or snow storm (-4 penalty on ranged attacks, read more here). Put them on a ship in the middle of the ocean and then RELEASE THE KRAKEN.

They'll probably still win, but they'll have a hell of a tale to tell.

[Little Skylark]

Have you ever worked with monsters coming in waves? I'm planning to do that in my next BBEG encounter. Some minions of the boss come first, not all at once, and eventually the boss himself.
I'm not sure yet how much they should know before the go into this encounter.

[The Fox]

Avoid using a single villain against the PCs, even if they are a high CR.

Good challenging encounters have at least as many enemies as there are PCs, even if most of the enemies are lower level. They also incorporate some type of environmental element---difficult terrain, water, fog, darkness, lava, a narrow bridge, caltrops, anti magic fields, cover, etc.

[Big Lemon]

Fog would make that Alchemist think twice. Missing with his bombs due to concealment would be a big risk.

A Wizard who has summoned/bound a number of devils prior to PC's arrival would be a good encounter. An unkown wizard could throw potentially anything at them.

[dreamingdragon]

You can't let PCs get away with one encounter per day.
Really, anything that will challenge them at that level will likely so overpower them that they can quite reasonably cry foul. Like a CR+8 or something.
Wear them down. Wait out their best buffs. Send scads of trash monsters to soak up resources, and then hit them with something reasonably challenging. Like a Pit Fiend riding a Red Dragon.
What do you mean, they're only 3rd level?